IUSI Reform 2026: Homes Exempt, Commercial Property Rescaled (Decreto 18-2026)

On July 29, 2026, Guatemala’s Congress approved Decreto 18-2026, which exempts homes from IUSI — the annual property tax. It passed with 120 votes in favour, reaching the floor through a privileged motion.

⚠️ Update — October 8, 2026: it is law, and the new rates start on November 26, 2026. President Arévalo sanctioned the decree and it was published in the Diario de Centro America on August 28, 2026. Congress’s own record of the decree gives November 26, 2026 as the date the IUSI changes take effect. Until then, the rates below under Decreto 15-98 are still the ones you owe. If you stop paying on the strength of a headline, you accrue arrears. (Earlier versions of this page, written before publication, said the decree still awaited sanction; a September version gave two possible start dates, a calendar-day count and a later date reported by the press, and said the count was unclear. Congress’s record settles it.)

This page tracks what actually changed, what did not, and the dates that decide it.

What changed

The scale still in force today

Decreto 15-98, Artículo 11 — “Tasas al valor”, verbatim from the statute:

Payable in four equal quarterly instalments (Artículo 21), due in April, July, October and January. You may prepay quarters in advance (Artículo 22).

The new commercial scale

A note on the “9 por millar” headlines. Some outlets reported the commercial rate as a flat 9 por millar. That is a simplification. The approved text sets three brackets — “De Q0 a Q500,000, 3 por millar. De Q500,000.01 a Q1,000,000, 6 por millar. De Q1,000,000.01 en adelante, 9 por millar” — printed verbatim by both the state news agency AGN and Prensa Libre. A small commercial property is not moving to 9 por millar.

Note the threshold shift: the old top bracket began at Q70,000 of registered value. The new commercial top bracket begins at Q1,000,000.

When it actually takes effect — the decree’s own calendar

The decree was published in the Diario de Centro America on August 28, 2026. Its Artículo 5 sets a staggered timeline, and Congress’s own record of the decree states the dates: the decree “entrará en vigencia el 27 de octubre de 2026”, with exceptions, and the provisions that amend the IUSI law “entrarán en vigencia el 26 de noviembre de 2026”.

The record adds that by November 26, 2026 the municipalities, SAT, MINFIN and the Dirección General de Catastro y Avalúo de Bienes Inmuebles are to adapt their records, forms, electronic channels and systems.

In other words: the zero rate for homes did not start on publication day — it starts on November 26, 2026. The October 2026 quarterly instalment falls due under Decreto 15-98 — one more reason not to stop paying on the strength of a headline.

The decree’s other articles:

• Artículo 2 (of Decreto 18-2026): adds Article 35 Bis to the IUSI law. Municipalities, their offices and companies may not make public services (drinking water, rubbish collection, street lighting, ornato or other basic services) conditional on prior payment of IUSI; the tax must be collected through its own procedures.
• Artículo 3: adds Article 43 Bis to the Stamp Tax Law so that the stamp tax collected on second and subsequent sales, exchanges and transfers of real estate goes to the municipality where the property sits — the partial compensation mechanism for the loss of residential IUSI (effective January 1, 2027). It does not change the 3% stamp tax rate.
• Artículo 4: adds numeral 4 to Article 87 of the income tax law (Decreto 10-2012): capital gains from the sale of real estate located in Guatemala become exempt for individuals, for sales made from January 1, 2027. The exemption does not cover legal entities, trusts, undivided estates that pay ISR, any other entity that pays ISR, or individuals with real-estate activities registered in the RTU (buying and selling, lot subdivision, urbanization, construction for sale, development, brokerage or marketing of real estate); their gains follow the general ISR rules. Until then, the 10% capital-gains ISR still applies to a sale.

Who this actually affects

Homeowners in Guatemala. From November 26, 2026, the rate on your home is zero. The change is forward-looking; it says nothing about what you already owe.

Commercial property owners. Your rate is rescaled, not removed. Deputy David Illescas described the commercial change as moving “antes el cálculo estaba a 3 por millar y ahora será a 9 por millar” — accurate for the top bracket, which is where large holdings land.

Diaspora owners in the US. The practical risk here runs the other way from the good news. Unpaid IUSI tends to surface when you sell, transfer or inherit, because municipalities require a payment record. A reform that zeroes future liability does not clear a past balance. Keep paying until the new rates take effect, and keep receipts.

Everyone, on timing. The October and January instalments straddle the November 26, 2026 effective date. The decree does not say how the quarter that runs across that date is billed, and nobody has published guidance on it.

The part nobody reported: which money the municipalities lose

Every outlet carried ANAM’s warning that the reform “would directly compromise the finances of the 277 municipalities,” and Deputy Julio Héctor Estrada’s caution that it “podría afectar los ingresos municipales.” None explained the mechanism. It is in Artículo 2 of the existing law, which decides who keeps IUSI revenue:

• Revenue from taxpayers at 2 por millar goes to the municipality in its entirety, as fondos propios — 100% municipal.
• Revenue collected by MINFIN at 6 or 9 por millar is split 25% to the State, 75% to the municipality, as fondos privativos.
• Municipalities must spend at least 70% of it on basic services and infrastructure.

So the lowest band is the only IUSI revenue municipalities keep in full. That band is defined by low registered value — which in practice skews residential. The reform removes residential IUSI entirely, which means municipalities lose their only fully-retained property-tax stream along with a share of the rest.

What we are not claiming: the old bands were defined by value, not use, so “residential” and “the 2-por-millar band” are not the same set of properties — a home registered above Q70,000 was paying 9 por millar and now pays nothing. Sizing the loss per municipality needs matrícula-fiscal data that is not public. We are not putting a percentage on it, and you should distrust anyone who does without showing that data.

How much money is actually at stake

National IUSI collection in 2025 was Q1,853.7 million across the 22 departments — and it is extraordinarily concentrated:

At the other end, Patzité, Quiché reported zero IUSI collection in 2025.

That concentration cuts both ways, and it is the honest read of this reform: a municipality that never collected meaningful IUSI loses little, while metropolitan municipalities that fund real services from it lose a lot. ANAM puts roughly 50 of the 277 municipalities in the heavily-dependent category, and lists what is exposed: contratación de maestros para escuelas, nursing staff in health centres, rubbish collection, drinking-water and drainage maintenance, and pavements. ANAM is not asking for a veto — it “insta a los legisladores a instalar, a la mayor brevedad posible, una mesa de trabajo.”

The Ministerio de Finanzas Públicas warned that eliminating taxes “disminuye temporal o permanentemente los recursos disponibles para financiar obras y servicios públicos” and that suspensions would hinder Guatemala’s push for investment-grade status. CGC director José Andrés Ardón called the proposal “un arma de doble filo”; Habibi Quiñónez Oliva (ICE) identified municipal finance as the “principal riesgo”.

Where this came from — and why April’s coverage said something different

This is Iniciativa 6709, introduced in April 2026 by the UNE, TODOS and CREO blocs. As drafted it proposed a flat 3% rate plus exemptions for first-time buyers, adults 60+, and owners with 20 consecutive years of payment. It was amended article by article during third debate, and the version that passed replaced the flat rate with the use-based 0 / 3 / 6 / 9 structure above. It modifies Artículo 11 of Decreto 15-98.

So if you read April’s reporting about a “3% IUSI”, that design did not survive. Note the unit trap while you are at it: 3 por millar is 0.3%, not 3% — a hundredfold difference, and easy to misread in Spanish-language coverage.

⚠️ Vote counts differ by stage and by outlet and we are not going to paper over it: 131 votes are reported for the approval of Iniciativa 6709, and both 120 votes (AGN) and 107 votes (La Hora, July 31 piece) for the final redaction that became Decreto 18-2026. Different figures appear in credible outlets describing the same July 29 session; none of them changes what the decree says.

Still unresolved

1. Resolved: the President sanctioned the decree and it was published in the Diario de Centro América on August 28, 2026.
2. Resolved: the published decree sets the commercial scale at 3/6/9 por millar with the Q500,000 / Q1,000,000 thresholds, as AGN and Prensa Libre reported.
3. Resolved: Congress’s record of the decree dates the IUSI changes to November 26, 2026 (decree in general October 27, 2026; ISR and stamp tax January 1, 2027).
4. Arrears, fines and interest. Unaddressed.
5. How “uso mixto” gets classified for a home with a shop downstairs.
6. The January 2027 instalment: the October 2026 instalment falls due under Decreto 15-98. How municipalities will bill the quarter that runs across November 26, 2026 is not covered by the decree or the sources below.

We will update this page as each resolves.

Sources

• Decreto 15-98, Ley del Impuesto Único Sobre Inmuebles — full statute (Artículos 2, 3, 11, 12, 21, 22), published by the Contraloría General de Cuentas (that mirror returns 403 to automated clients; a readable copy of the same statute is published by INAP).
• Agencia Guatemalteca de Noticias (AGN) — approval, decree number, vote count, commercial bracket scale, and the sanction/publication requirement; sanction and publication, August 28, 2026 (90 days to take effect; published commercial scale).
• Congreso de la República — decree record for Decreto 18-2026 (publication date, and the effective dates October 27, 2026, November 26, 2026 and January 1, 2027), and the decree as published in the Diario de Centro America, August 28, 2026 (read October 8, 2026).
• Prensa Libre — when each change takes effect (published August 28, 2026; it reported a later start date from a Congress source, which Congress’s own decree record does not bear out).
• Prensa Libre — commercial bracket scale verbatim; ANAM’s warning on the 277 municipalities.
• Soy502 — residential/mixed-use wording; Illescas and Estrada quotes.
• La Hora — “hasta 9 por millar” framing; July 31 article-by-article final version (Artículo 5 effective dates, Artículo 2 prohibition, Artículo 3 stamp tax, Artículo 4 ISR, 107 votes on final redaction).
• Congreso de la República — initiative notices (note: the separate “exonerar el IUSI y eliminar sanciones” initiative is a different instrument). The Congreso notice pages (congreso.gob.gt/noticias_congreso/15758/2026/1 and /15610/2026/3) render only through a browser — they return an empty JavaScript shell to any automated client, checked 2026-09-01, so they are named here rather than linked as read.

Rates and status verified against the statute and the approved-text reporting on 2026-07-29; sanction, publication and effective dates re-checked against Congress’s decree record and the published decree on 2026-10-08. This is general information about a tax rule, not legal or tax advice — for your specific property, confirm with your municipality or a Guatemalan accountant.